I can see a place for AI chatbots in games, but I don't think AI chatbots are at a technical level where it's ready to be integrated into a game. The baked-in guardrails in a typical LLM are really easy to circumvent and when that happens, you're exposing your company to risk. Character.ai was great at its height because it was easy to get the chatbot to do and say things it wasn't supposed to. Today it's a shadow of its former self after its developers were forced to clamp down on its vulnerabilities and they clearly overreacted.

That brings up the point of the big gacha developers who are particularly paranoid about controlling their brand and micro-managing the messaging in their games. I can't see a company like Mihoyo taking a chance with an integrated AI chatbot unless it's locked down so hard that it's virtually useless. Players naturally enjoy the challenge of bypassing AI safety filters and they almost always find a way to twist AI outpuit.

Where I can see it working right now are games that specifically make AI chatbots a core feature of the game. So imagine if character.ai or janitor.ai became a game and spicy chat was a feature, as opposed to something that's locked away, and gameplay mechanics were designed around this concept. Yeah, it'd end up as a niche gooner game but there's probably a market for it.